


Espresso and Caramel

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [92]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Fluff, kastle - Freeform, pure fluff, written before The Punisher aired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 18:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12846942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: Tumblr prompt: "Karen the bookstore barista and Castle looking for good coffee and a new Jack Reacher novel"





	Espresso and Caramel

He first walked in there looking for one specific novel. After reading the synopsis on a magazine on the subway, he was interested, and walked in this small bookshop near his apartment to look for it.

He found a copy fast enough, it wasn’t difficult. But then he sat down to read it, on the counter of the small café on the very back of the place, and it felt like he got the story by the middle of it.

“That is the fifth book”, came a voice from behind the counter.

Looking up, Frank saw this woman, blonde and blue eyed, smiling at him, a pot of coffee in her hand.

“Coffee?” she asked, her long hair in a low braid, tucked casually but neatly over her right collarbone.

With a nod he hoped didn’t look too foolish, Frank returned her smile with a smaller one, the one, he had been told, was charming.

“There are twenty two Jack Reacher books”, she continued, bringing a white cup to him and filling it with coffee that smelled delicious. “The latest one just came out this year.”

“You a fan?” he asked, noticing a small ink stain on her chin, as if she had chewed on a pen recently.

“Not really. We had a signing when the book came out, I organized it.”

“A signing, huh?” he took a sip of the coffee and looked as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear after setting the pot back in it’s place.

“Yeah, my grandmother is very well connected. She called James and asked if he would like to have a signing here the day the book came out, he was all too happy to agree. This place was packed, I don’t even know how the walls didn’t give.”

Looking at him with the air of someone that just caught themselves at something, she offered another smile, this one with a hint of self consciousness.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. You just looked a bit… Confused.”

Frank closed the book and set it by his coffee.

“I was confused”, he admitted, taking another sip. “I know nothing about this, I read a note about it, thought I’d give it a try.”

With a shrug, she picked up the coffee pot again to fill the mug of a lady that sat on the corner of the counter, reading a thick novel.

“I can help you sort it out”, she offered, smiling at the woman, who smiled back at her. (“Thanks, Karen”, she said), “If you’d like.”

When she was standing beside him in front of the shelf he had found the fifth book, he looked at her while she looked at the volumes.  

It has been a while, since he had seen a woman that left him speechless. Beautiful women were not hard to find, it was hard to find an ugly one, but fuck him sideways, this one might not even be human.

“Ok”, she started, eyes focusing on the books in front of them while his inspected her face. “Do you want to read it in chronological order, or in publishing order?”

Frank doesn’t answer, because he’s busy trying to decide if he had ever seen a woman more beautiful than her, ever. She looks at him and he shrugs.

“What do you think?”

She was smiling again and then picking one up from the shelf.

“I’d go with publishing order. If he published them like that, it must  mean they should be read at that order, don’t you think?”

Trying not to shrug again, he picked up the book she offered him, and gave her the one he had picked up for himself.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He went back to his seat and she offered him a slice of pecan pie to go with his coffee and his book. Frank found that her voice was a good soundtrack for his reading, talking to the waiting staff, customers, with a woman he assumed was the grandmother she had mentioned, who was the owner of the bookshop. It carried him through his reading, and, before he knew it, he had to go back home and walk the dogs.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked, paying his bill.

“I’ll be here”, she offered. “It’s Karen, by the way.”

He knows. People have been calling her around him, familiar. She made conversation, served coffee and pie, cake, hot chocolate for children and lattes for teenagers. Black coffee for some. For him. Black coffee and a smile, every time. Sometimes, when he moved to stretch a bit, she would peek and check the page he was in.

“Frank”, he offered, and she nodded once, cocking her head and turning back to go back behind the counter.

“See you tomorrow, Frank.”

He got home wondering if he had spent the afternoon in another dimension, in the company of someone who was not real.

.:.

He was almost finishing the seventh book when when he noticed something different about her.

Her greeting smile wasn’t as bright, she stopped leaning in to read over his shoulder, didn’t ask if he wanted more coffee, just poured more every time she noticed his cup was almost empty. When she asked if he wanted carrot cake, her voice was smaller.

He couldn’t really tell what was different, or if something was wrong, but then, while she finished slicing a very nice smelling cake, her grandmother came behind the counter.

“Matthew called”, she said, in a small voice Frank heard only because he was paying attention. “Again.”

Karen sighed, apparently annoyed.

Ah. Explained.

“You’re not gonna call him?”

“I did”, she answered, short, losing the remaining grip she had on her temper. “We talked. There’s nothing else to say. I don’t wanna talk to him.”

The knife hit the plate under the cake at the word “talk”, as if to emphasize the finality of her decision.

“Alright, dear, alright”, sighed her grandmother, patting her on the shoulder and walking to Frank. “Hello, Frank” she greeted him.

“Mrs. Page how you doing?” he asked, closing his book.

“Good, good. Enjoying the books?”

“I am. She makes me read a different one in between these.” He motioned to Karen with his chin and was glad to see a small smile breaking her otherwise grim expression.

“Oh?” she turned to her granddaughter. “Which ones?”

“Just one”, Karen offered. “’New York Stories’.”

“Hmm”, she nodded, looking back at him. “To cleanse the pallet, heh?”

“That’s what she says.”

With a polite, affectionate smile to him, she turned back around and raised a hand to caress Karen’s cheek.

“Your hair’s gotten long”, she said, and Karen looked at her with the air of a little girl who had been caught stealing from a cookie jar that was meant for her anyway.

The older woman got inside the kitchen and the door swung behind her.

“I like it” Frank offered, if only to make her let go of that sad look, even for a moment. “The longer hair.”

Karen looked from the kitchen door and back to him, sustained his look for a few seconds, and he was happy to see a smile stretch on her lips.

“Do you want cake?” she asked, already turning to pick up a plate for him.

“If I take everything you offer me”, he said, draining the last of his coffee. “I’ll get as fat as I can get in no time.”

She turned to him with a teasing look in her face, a hand on her waist.

“So you don’t want cake?”

“I didn’t say that, did I?”

Turning back, she picked up the plate and placed it in front of him, offering him the fork with a twist of her wrist.

“You see the chocolate chips?” he raised his brows and she lifted her shoulder, charmingly. “I placed them myself.”

“Wow”, he said, sarcastically, happy to see her teeth, this time, when she smiled. “Practically a baker yourself.”

He ate and he read and he drank the coffee she filled his mug with. He pretended to read while she rested her elbows on the far side of the counter to look at a kid’s phone while he showed her something or other.

She was loved by those who frequented her grandmother’s book shop and café. It helped that she knew people by their names and memorized their favorite orders and their birthdays.

Still. Even as she smiled and joked, Frank saw the little sighs and how the smiles dropped every time she turned around and didn’t have to speak to anyone.

It made him wonder if she smiled at him just as she smiled to everyone else or if she smiled like he smiled at her - because she couldn’t help it.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked when he got up to leave, like he did everyday, now.

“I’ll be here”, she replied, but he didn’t like that small, less than bright smile. Not at all.

.:.

She put the eighth book - The Enemy - in front of him when he sat down at a table on a Friday, because the counter was full. Men with laughter a little louder than the usual tone of the small café, but not enough to warrant a complaint, even if he could see all the other customers were not too happy with the newcomers.  

“I’ll be right back with your coffee”, she said, almost in a intimate whisper, and turned back around with a wink.

Frank was watching her move around and serve coffee and pie to the men on the counter, not liking the polite smile she gave them, finding it nervous and on edge. Not a sincere smile at all. At the very least, the blonde, slightly plump suited man on the very edge of the group seemed to not irk her.

“You know”, said a voice suddenly by his side. Mrs. Page sat on the chair by his right on the square table. “It is not everyone that… Fits here.”

Frank looked at her, her blue eyes, very similar to Karen’s own, looking back at him.

“I thought you wouldn’t, to be quite honest. But you did.” She looked away from him and towards Karen, who now smiled genuinely at the blonde man. “Perfectly, I’d say.”

He didn’t really know what to say to that, so he just sat there and watched.

“She’s not the same, my Karen. Since Matthew, she has been… Dimmed.”

“Matthew?”

“Ex-boyfriend. They were something to watch, those two. I even do believe he loved her just as much - if not more - than she loved him. But, as you must know, men, they…” she made a dismissive move with her hand. “He couldn’t see with his eyes, but all the same. There was too much around him, in his past, that clouded his vision. She denies it, thinks she’s protecting me, but it’s obvious, isn’t it? She’s hurt.”

They both looked towards her, who now sat at a table with three girls, taking a selfie.

“We have a secret menu, you know”, said the woman he came to see, he now realized, as his own grandmother. “She came up with it. Just for her favorites. But you have to ask for it.”

“You think I’m one of the favorites?”

The woman looked at him and offered a knowing smile. Patting his hand, she got up.

“Ask her about the secret menu. She calls it ‘Karen’s notebook’, but don’t tell her I said that. If I’m very, very wrong, she’ll tell you there isn’t one.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“You’re smart. I think you can figure it out for yourself.”

.:.

He stuck around longer, that day. Intent on seeing the men leave, on seeing his regular seat on the counter unoccupied, he sat there, not really reading, watching her for the rest of the day.

The group of suits left almost at closing time. The bookshop was empty already, there were only two couples still lingering on the tables, nursing coffee and tea and sharing pies.

Frank was about to tell her he was leaving, too, when she took her phone from her apron, listened to what he guessed was a message and then threw the device inside a drawer, banging it shut and taking a deep breath.

“You ok?” he asked, tired of that look in her face. He wanted the smiles again, the light expression.

Karen looked at him and blinked, making a face and a dismissive move of her shoulder.

“Yeah, just… My ex boyfriend.”

“He giving you trouble? You want me to rough him up for you?”

That earned him a blush and and coy curve of her lips.

“You would do that?”

“Just say the word.”

A little reluctantly, she told him all about this lawyer, this guy she had dated for almost a year, but had screwed things up because his ex girlfriend came back in town and hired him for something or other, and she couldn’t prove he had cheated, but she was positive, because he kept lying and hiding things from her, neglecting her, disappearing, missing dates.

“Stupid man”, Frank let out, and she looked at him with such sad eyes he wanted to hold her in his arms and make the memory of this Matthew guy go away.

“He’s actually very smart.”

“No, he’s not.” He moved his head, looking for her eyes, and she looked up from the counter, right back at him, and her throat moved in a way he didn’t know he liked until that very moment. “So. Am I teaching him a lesson or what?”

With a chuckle, she moved and picked up his empty mug.

“No, that’s ok”, she said. “I’ll keep that offer in mind, though.”

Placing the refreshed mug in front of him, she placed her elbows on the counter and leaned on them, and he noticed her hips going from left to right, a distracted sway of her body.

Her braid flew behind her shoulder when she looked back at him while he took a sip of his coffee - it was too late for coffee, but still -, watching him, her eyes a dark blue in the faded light.

“Did you know we have a secret menu?” she asked, whispering, even if the two couples still occupying tables were far from the counter enough to not hear their conversation.

Frank watched her face, a pleasant, eager feeling rising up inside him.

“Yeah?”

She nodded.

“It really is a secret. If you promise to keep it, I’ll let you have an item from it.”

“What am I having?” he asked after a second, deciding it was ok if she caught him staring at her lips.

“Will you keep the secret?” she whispered, leaning a little bit closer, making him lean, too.

He nodded, excited, eager, a little giddy, happy, even, when she pursed her lips, pretending to think, hummed a pondering note, and got back up from the counter, turning around and getting a tall cappuccino glass from the shelf and a tin pot of coffee from the fridge on the corner.

“Now, this is new. I don’t even know if it’s good, yet. You’ll be my guinea pig.”

She put a bunch of stuff on the counter in front of him, measuring and mixing and stirring. When she was done, she turned the tin pot on the tall glass, filling it with the cold drink until an inch from the top, finishing it with a layer of whip cream - not the canned shit he didn’t even like, the one he knew they made right there in the kitchen - and a thin layer of powdered chocolate.

With a look at him, she slid the glass on the counter towards him and then leaned back on her elbows.

“There you go.”

It looked like something a teenager would order. He was not the biggest fan of iced coffee, but, for her, he would give it a try. Hell, he had already decided he wold say it was good, even if he hated it.

Which he didn’t. It tasted of the espresso he liked, only cold and with a hint of caramel. She instructed him to stir the whip cream in before drinking it, and the texture was a pleasant one on his tongue. Bitter and sweet and smooth, cold down his throat. He wanted another sip immediately.

Frank looked at her, who was watching him. When their eyes met, she bit on her lower lip and raised her brows at him.

“So?”

He nodded, licking his own lips.

“Very good, ma’am.”

There it is. A non sad smile.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Reaching her hand, she picked up his mug and took a sip from it. It made him exhale sharply.

“You know what I call it?”

He just looked at her, studying her face, full on staring and hummed his question.

“Castle”, she whispered, sliding the mug back to him, looking at him, her eyes sucking his in, he made no effort to look away.

“Should I feel proud or do you mean an actual castle?”

She shook her head, dropping her gaze from his eyes to somewhere else on his face.

“I don’t mean a castle”, she said, and then looked somewhere behind him. The last table was asking for the check.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked after finishing the drink named after him and getting up to put his jacket on.

“I’ll be here.”

.:.

He watched her closing the door to the café and walking to the door of the shop. He was sitting on a bench on the other side of the street, waiting for her.

Karen saw him just before she turned the lights off. While she locked up, he got up and crossed the street, coming to a halt by her side, leaning on the window display.

“I thought you left”, she said, smiling at him.

He shrugged.

“I thought I could walk you home. It’s late. You shouldn’t walk alone.”

Finishing with the locks, she squinted at him.

“I can take care of myself, mister”. Putting the keys in her purse, she turned to him and reached for his arm. “But since you’re here.”

She took his arm and they walked together towards her building.

She lived almost ten blocks away from work, so he suggested they stopped by his place to get his dogs.

“They must be going crazy, I haven’t walked them since this morning.”

She agreed easily, making cute noises at the two huge pitbulls that greeted them at his door.

The four of them walked slowly to her place, stopping when the dogs needed to stop, not rushing to cross streets when the signs were blinking, talking of nothing and everything.

“Here we are”, she announced, too soon to his liking, and he watched as she rubbed the dog’s faces in farewell. When she rose up again, the smile she offered him was something similar to the ones he was used to.

Frank was about to say goodnight, or maybe something else, when her phone vibrated, very loudly, inside the pocket of her coat. That made her smile fade a bit, her eyes unfocusing from his.

In a move he would have curbed if her face was a different one, he took a step towards her and reached inside her pocket.

“Your phone is ringing”, he said, low, his face inches from hers, and she looked surprised, but not displeased. When he got a hold of the device, he pulled it out and looked away from her to check the caller ID. “It’s ‘Matt’”, he announced, the name sounding sarcastic in his voice. “I’m gonna hang up on him.”

She let out a voiceless laugh when he answered the call, just to end it right after.

“Why did you do that?” she asked in a low, almost lazy voice, standing there so close to him.

“I don’t want you to talk to him.”

“Why not?”

“You’re talking to me, now.”

When he leaned in, her kiss tasted of the sweet coffee drink she had made up, espresso and caramel. They started slow, almost shy, the kind of kiss that Frank thought he had grown out of after high school. Apparently not.

Karen sucked a breath in when he nipped on a tiny portion of her lower lip, and it was like there were embers in his stomach. After that breath, he clutched her phone in his hand and moved to put that same arm around her, pulling her closer, her stomach touching his, her hands raising and resting, one on his arm, another on the collar of his shirt.

Letting go was not something he wanted to do. Not at all. But, he figured, they were standing on the sidewalk, it was late, she probably needed to get home, he did, too, he had work in the morning.

One of the dogs - he really wasn’t sure which one, so focused he was on the sound she was making, a gentle humming, and the feel of her hands on him - bit the hem of his coat, pulling on him, and he moved his hand to stop them, but he slowed down.

Allowing himself another second of two - or three. Five. Ten. Thirty -, he pressed on her lower back and moved to place a smaller, chaste kiss on the corner of her mouth.

“You won’t talk to him. Ok?” he whispered in her ear, liking how she moved her arm in an almost hug around his shoulders.

“Who?”

Calm down, ego.

“ _Matt_ ”, he said, sarcastic, again, with another kiss to her lips because - because.

“Oh”, she said, chuckling, giggling, a small, timid huff of laughter. “Yeah, ok.”

“You’ll talk to me, now.”

She nodded and moved, asking for another kiss, and he gave it, of course he did, because her mouth, her eyes, her hands, this woman-

“You don’t think about him anymore”, he demanded, suddenly so possessive, he wanted her mind on him until they saw each other again. “You think about me.”

“Only if you think about m-”

“I’ll be thinking about you”, he interrupted. “It’s already all I do.”

Frank felt her smile in her kiss.

“Go in”, he urged after another minute, placing her phone back in her pocket, because he had to let her go.

He had kissed her lipstick completely off. Her cheeks were tinged a flattering shade of pink, her lips were a tad fuller. With a smile she tried to hold, she whispered a goodnight and turned around with another pat on one of the dogs.

He watched her climb one step, then another, then turn around and walk back to him.

He still tasted coffee on her tongue. He still felt something run down his back at the feel of her.

“What if he calls again?” she asked against his mouth, and Frank was losing that battle against himself. “What do I do if he calls again?”

There was a list of things, on the tip of his tongue, graphic and toe curling, he was ready to suggest them all, whisper filthy, amazing things in her ear, that she could do, but he thought maybe it was too early to say them to her.

“You’re not making it easy”, he said against her mouth, and felt her lips curving in a smile.

“Easy?”

“I’m trying to be a good guy, here-”

“Stop trying”, she said, kissing him one more time and then stepping back towards the stairs, climbing the first three steps and then looking back at him, keys in one hand, the other stretched towards him.”I already know you are.”

The thought “rebound” did cross his mind. While he stood there on the sidewalk, holding his dog’s leashes, Frank thought maybe he should go home, maybe he shouldn’t rush this, maybe he should make sure he wasn’t just a way for her not to think about the other guy.

But then, there was still the taste of coffee on his tongue. Castle, she had called it, even before this, which meant-

He doesn’t really care what it means, he can think about that later. Right now she’s reaching for him and he’s taking a step towards her, taking her hand and dropping kisses to her temple while she opened the door, climbing the steps behind her until they reached her apartment.

He did call again, that other guy. Her phone vibrated and vibrated inside her coat pocket, but neither of them heard it. Frank was busy learning what she looked like under her clothes, learning the ways of her body, how she reacted when he touched her here and there, when he kissed her on that spot and this, the look in her face when she was trying to be quiet, long dark lashes against creamy, rosy skin, beads of sweat on her neck, slaty on his tongue.

The dogs heard the phone. It was annoying, they were trying to sleep under her couch, on that nice rug that felt good under their paws. But the damn phone kept vibrating, until it fell from her pocket on the floor and Max got it in his mouth, dropping it by the bed, to maybe force Frank deal with the thing, finally.

.:.

Morning found him awake, looking at her hair against the pillows while she slept.

Leaning in, he pressed a kiss on the back of her head, not entirely sure how she was going to react to the fact that he was still here.

To is relief and joy, she stirred awake and turned around, opening her eyes briefly, looking at him, smiling and then closing them again, scooting closer to snuggle against his chest.

“I have to go”, he said, hand running up and down her back.

“No”, was her reply, muffled against his skin.

“I have to get to work”. A kiss on her forehead, another on her cheek, forcing her to wake up and look at him. “So do you.”

“No”. This one was whiny, with an arm around his torso, keeping him close. “Let’s stay here.”

Tempting. Very, very tempting, but he had to get the dogs home, he had to eat something, he had to go to work, he had a lot of things to do.

“How about we have lunch?” he suggested, loving the blue in her eyes when she finally opened them. “And then I’ll stop by for coffee.”Another kiss, because why not? “And then we’ll have dinner.” Another. “And then we’ll come back here, or to my place.”

“And then what?”

“Then I’ll take your clothes off again. And you’ll take mine.”

“And then?”

Positioning himself over her, he got a hold of each of her knees and pulled, one leg on each side of him, making her giggle, dropping to kiss her deeply, too deeply, they had to get up, but not right now.

.:.

He kissed her soundly again three streets away from the book shop. He had to go right and get ready for work, she had to go left and open up shop.

“I’ll see you later?” he asked, musing on how difficult it was to let go of her.

“I’ll be here”, she answered, like she always did, kissing him again and walking away. He watched her cross the streets and she turned back to look at him. “Go”, she mouthed, smiling, turning back around.

Frank sighed, trying not to grin like an idiot at seven in the morning.

“Come on, let’s go home”, he said to the unimpressed dogs.

Hour later, after their lunch and quick rendezvous in a public bathroom, of all places, after he got off work and went to claim his place on the café counter, she looked at him with her usual smile again, and a hint of something more.

“Hello, Frank”, she said, as if she wasn’t wrapped around him just a few hours ago, biting on his shoulder to keep quiet. “What can I get you today?”

“I heard you have a secret menu?”

She squinted her eyes at him, dropping her voice.

“Who told you that? It’s a secret.”

“I’m well connected.”

With a look that made him swallow dry, she turned around and made his drink for him. He had three before she could leave, and she stole sips from every single one. Finally, when he kissed her again, removing her coat and lowering the zipper of her dress, he tasted Castle on her tongue.


End file.
